The Journal of PGR Pedagogic Practice is a co-created peer-reviewed journal organised by a multidisciplinary team of postgraduates for all postgraduates, and anyone interested in supporting their teaching practice. We provide a space for postgraduate researchers (PGRs) to share their unique perspectives on their teaching practice, their successes and their failures, and their experiences in higher education. We hope to offer comforting examples and thought-provoking reflections for the wider community of PGRs. To others, we hope they are indicative of the sort of novel pedagogies PGRs have cultivated and the challenges they faced in their teaching. The Journal is published by Warwick PTC.
Journal of PGR Pedagogic Practice: Evolving Experiences in Postgraduate Teaching: Navigating Changing Landscapes, Practices, and Technologies
This year’s Journal of Postgraduate Pedagogies and Practice (JPPP) Issue 5 editorial team is led by Arpit Jindal (Chemistry/Life Sciences) and mentored by Meifang Zhuo (Applied Linguistics), supported by a dynamic group of Post-Graduate Research Teacher Champions from across the University of Warwick: Areesh Fatmee (Warwick Medical School), Clarissa Muller-Kosmarov (Philosophy), Alisha Rodgers (School of Engineering), Usoro Akpan (Warwick Medical School), and Adila Fazleen Che Manan (Education Studies). Together, the seven-member team brings a rich range of disciplinary expertise, cultural backgrounds, and lived experiences, reflecting the inclusive spirit of both the JPPP and the Warwick Postgraduate Teaching Community (WPTC). United by a commitment to inclusivity, innovation, and the advancement of PGR teaching and2 learning, the team works collaboratively to produce a journal issue that amplifies diverse voices while strengthening the visibility and impact of postgraduate teachers across the university.
Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Counting and mattering: bringing GTA visibility to the fore in data, at a time of sector change
UK Higher Education faces mounting pressures from financial instability, rising student numbers, and increasing regulatory demands. In this context, Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play a critical role in sustaining teaching and learning during these challenging times. Despite their continued and growing presence, GTAs often remain absent or unseen in national datasets, institutional metrics and reporting, and quality assurance frameworks, leaving their contributions under-recognised and their professional status unclear. This paper considers GTAs in relation to sector bodies and national datasets, examining the implications of their relative invisibility for strategic planning, accountability, and student outcomes, particularly in light of growing sector-wide emphasis on compliance and performance indicators. Drawing on institutional knowledge, experience and sector data, it advocates for a more rigorous approach to counting and representing GTAs both locally and nationally, positioning visibility as essential for equity, recognition, and the future resilience of our work. It argues that by ‘counting better’, we might also, at last, move towards liberating GTAs from the ubiquitous and well-document liminal space which they occupy.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sara Hattersley https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Editorial: "Evolving Experiences in Postgraduate Teaching: Navigating Changing Landscapes, Practices, and Technologies"
This year’s Journal of Postgraduate Pedagogies and Practice (JPPP) Issue 5 editorial team is led by Arpit Jindal (Chemistry/Life Sciences) and mentored by Meifang Zhuo (Applied Linguistics), supported by a dynamic group of Post- Graduate Research Teacher Champions from across the University of Warwick: Areesh Fatmee (Warwick Medical School), Clarissa Muller-Kosmarov (Philosophy), Alisha Rodgers (School of Engineering), Usoro Akpan (Warwick Medical School), and Adila Fazleen Che Manan (Education Studies). Together, the seven-member team brings a rich range of disciplinary expertise, cultural 1 backgrounds, and lived experiences, reflecting the inclusive spirit of both the JPPP and the Warwick Postgraduate Teaching Community (WPTC). United by a commitment to inclusivity, innovation, and the advancement of PGR teaching and learning, the team works collaboratively to produce a journal issue that amplifies diverse voices while strengthening the visibility and impact of postgraduate teachers across the university.
Copyright (c) 2025 Arpit Jindal, Areesh Fatmee, Clarissa Muller-Kosmarov, Alisha Rodgers, Usoro Akpan, Adila Fazleen Che-Manan, Meifang Zhuo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Two Voices, Many Languages’:A Duoethnographic Look at Multilingual Identity in Teaching Spaces in a UK University
Despite the dominance of English and entrenched monolingual norms in UK higher education (HE), campuses are increasingly characterised by multilingual realities driven by intensified international mobility and internationalisation of HE. Many graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) and students come from multilingual backgrounds and routinely move across languages. While scholarly attention to multilingual identity in educational settings is growing, GTAs’ experiences within this framework remain overlooked. To bridge the gap by answering calls to reimagine universities as multilingual spaces and to harness peer dialogue for GTA professional development, this study employs duoethnography to stage a critical conversation between two multilingual GTAs. Informed by Morea & Fisher’s (2023) model of teachers’ multilingual identities, we ask: How are our own and our students’ evolving multilingual identities positioned in day-to-day teaching, and what affordances or constraints emerge within English-dominant pedagogical discourses? Through a reflective thematic analysis of our peer dialogue data, three key themes emerge: 1) managing our evolving relationship with ‘Native Speakerism’, 2) negotiating professional roles and personal identity through language use, 3) coping with emotional complexities of multilingual teaching. This study shows that multilingual identity is simultaneously a pedagogical asset and a site of struggle. By articulating these tensions, the study offers GTAs, GTA developers and programme leads practical leverage points for change, such as normalising translanguaging, fostering collaborative reflection on linguistic diversity, circulating language-inclusive teaching tips and foregrounding multilingual perspectives in departmental discussions, which may incrementally unsettle monolingual norms and cultivate more equitable, intellectually vibrant learning environments in UK HE.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dr Yanyan Li, Kaiqi Yu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Building Resilience: Promoting Mental Well-being in Graduate Teaching Assistants Through Structured Institutional Support
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) occupy a unique and demanding space within academia, balancing the simultaneous roles of student and instructor. Their dual responsibilities expose them to heightened stress and social isolation, which together compromise their mental health and efficacy as educators. Yet, when institutions adopt a comprehensive, intentional approach that combines structured mentorship, robust pedagogical training, and policy-driven support systems, the narrative can be transformed from one of vulnerability to one of resilience and empowerment. Effective mentorship not only fosters psychological safety and professional identity among GTAs but also cultivates a collegial culture where challenges are shared, feedback is constructive, and personal growth is prioritised. Complementary to this is the role of compulsory and well-tailored teaching development programmes, which provide the emotional and practical tools necessary for confident, reflective teaching. However, support must extend beyond the classroom; equitable policies around workload, leave, and recognition are essential to creating a sustainable academic experience for GTAs, particularly when informed by global best practices. Embedding mental well-being into every facet of institutional support, whether through peer networks, supervisor relationships, or formal training, promotes resilience and prevents burnout. As universities increasingly allow GTAs to deliver core teaching responsibilities, they must commit to providing an ecosystem that values, nurtures, and equips them not only as temporary instructional staff but as future leaders in education. Through a shift from reactive to preventive mental health strategies and from fragmented initiatives to cohesive institutional cultures of care, higher education can unlock the full potential of GTAs while advancing student learning, faculty development, and academic excellence.
Copyright (c) 2025 Usoro Udousoro Akpan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Intentional Re-framing of Self-Care as an Institutional Priority in Postgraduate Teaching
The prioritization of self-care in postgraduate teaching has emerged as a critical yet often overlooked component of both personal and professional success. As the intensifying demands of the role continue to test the boundaries of mental wellness and professional sustainability, the absence of structured, institutionally supported mechanisms for educator well-being has become increasingly apparent. Rather than being embedded in formal support systems, self-care is often treated as an individual responsibility, managed informally or in isolation, leaving educators vulnerable to burnout, emotional exhaustion, and disengagement. This review synthesizes peer- reviewed studies using a critical approach to evaluate institutional practices regarding postgraduate teachers’ well-being. It identifies key gaps in support systems, including the lack of integrated mental health frameworks and limited access to preventive wellness resources. In response, the paper proposes deliberate strategies such as the development and implementation of comprehensive institutional mental health policies and the establishment of ongoing preventive wellness programs tailored to academic staff, emphasizing stress management, resilience, and holistic well-being. These measures reconceptualize educators not merely as knowledge transmitters but as whole individuals navigating complex professional and emotional demands. By positioning mental wellness as an institutional responsibility rather than a personal afterthought, this shift redefines self- care from an isolated coping mechanism into a collective, strategic necessity for achieving sustainable excellence in academia.
Copyright (c) 2025 Emmanuel Lucas Nwachukwu, Obi Obison Oblation https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Evolving as a GTA: Teaching, Performing and Identity
In this critical reflection, I will explore the role of identity and performance in shaping my evolution from a novice to an expert GTA. Most early-career GTAs lack confidence in their instructional abilities, but for those who are a minority in academia, this can be compounded by questions about what ‘bringing their whole self to work’ looks like. I initially approached teaching as a performance in which I had to play the role of a ‘neutral’, omniscient guide, masking aspects of myself to maintain perceived authority. As discussed by Lauren Berlant in On the Inconvenience of Other People (2022), the performance of teaching became dissociative, and I constrained myself to teaching the topics I found most straightforward to teach. As my teaching experience grew, I began to branch out from teaching mathematics to (geo)physics, and from small group tutorials to field- classes and lectures. In doing this, I developed not only practical strategies for different scenarios, but also a deeper understanding of how my personal identity as queer and disabled shapes my teaching style. I realised that whilst teaching is in some sense performative, performative need not mean inauthentic or ‘perfect’. By unmasking, I was able to connect better with students and became a more effective teacher. Using milestones and different experiences in my GTA journey as vignettes, I will argue that the evolution from novice to expert is not simply about mastering content or classroom management, but also about learning to teach authentically. I therefore suggest that GTA training ought to recognise how GTAs’ lived experiences can enrich their teaching practice and should support GTAs to develop tools to be as authentic as they wish in their teaching practice.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rebecca L. Colquhoun https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From Clicks to Connections: Applying Activity Theory to Multimodal Materials Design for GTA Development
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) often occupy a liminal space in higher education, tasked with delivering high-quality teaching while receiving limited formal training or pedagogical development. This uneven provision, often shaped by departmental discretion, intersects with the pressures GTAs face to progress in their research, develop their teaching practice, and manage time and wellbeing. In response to this gap, I designed a series of multimodal units, delivered asynchronously, to offer more accessible, flexible, and supportive professional learning opportunities. These units drew on the best principles of online learning (Nilson & Goodson, 2018) and were underpinned by a commitment to personalisation, accessibility, and community-building. To evaluate the impact and limitations of this intervention, I draw upon Carabantes’ (2024) Activity Theory framework to critically analyse and design contextually relevant materials, moving beyond static curricular prescriptions toward dynamic, need-responsive pedagogies. In this reflection, I critically examine the contradictions and affordances, ranging from institutional constraints (limited training, time, and recognition) to the mediating tools employed (e.g., Rise, ChatGPT-generated visuals, Padlet). I argue that Activity Theory not only makes visible the tensions in GTA learning contexts but also supported design choices that enhanced engagement and agency through personalisation, accessibility, and community-oriented tasks. This reflection situates material development as a deeply relational and political act, one that demands awareness of power, equity, and evolving identities in higher education. By focusing on multimodal learning design as a third-space intervention (Whitchurch, 2008), I suggest that GTAs’ professional learning can be enriched when self-study material design is treated not as an afterthought, but as a central, theory-informed element of pedagogical practice. I conclude with implications for the professionalisation of postgraduate teachers and a call to reimagine materials development training within GTA programmes.
Copyright (c) 2025 Dr Paula Villegas https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Curriculum from the Margins: Experience of Building a Dalit-Feminist Business English Programme as an Untrained Facilitator
In September 2024, while working as a part-time Business English facilitator at a grassroots NGO in India, I was entrusted with a unique but revolutionary task- to design an English curriculum for Business and Job-readiness from a Dalit-Feminist standpoint. As a post-graduate student of Cultural Studies with no formal training in teaching, language education, or material development, I undertook the project with equal measure of self-doubt and ambition, and a need for steady income- a perfect specimen of a GTA. This paper offers a critical reflective account of my journey as a GTA over the course of two years of working with the NGO. Unlike a conventional academic setting, the NGO foregrounded socio-political sensitivity and learner autonomy. It forced me to draw upon and question my own past experiences as a student, which I unconsciously began to replicate as a facilitator. Working with young Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi women learners (ages 18-40), I found myself developing creative ways to translate critical theories like intersectional theory, critical pedagogy, and Dalit and feminist scholarship into accessible and context-sensitive content. These experiences highlighted how significant the role of a GTA can be, precisely because of our liminal positionality as both in and out of the rigid frameworks of academia. GTAs occupy a space of possibility and probabilities, not weighed down by institutionalised teacher training, where pedagogic methodologies can be reimagined in real time. This in-betweenness allows for experimentation that is messy, imperfect, but also deeply generative, and holds the power to lead us to a social justice-oriented pedagogy in praxis.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nisha Kumari https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
From Burnout to Balance: Embedding Wellbeing in the Professional Trajectory of GTAs
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) in higher education balance the dual demands of teaching and research, which can foster professional growth yet often lead to overwork and burnout. This reflective paper draws on my experience of teaching professional writing to MA Foreign Language (FL) students at The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU). It highlights stressors related to workload, mentoring, and balancing institutional expectations with research progress. In response, I implemented four wellbeing strategies: (1) structured feedback windows, (2) realistic goal-setting, (3) peer support networks, and (4) regular reflective practice. Drawing on pedagogical principles from feedback and self-regulated learning research, these strategies enhanced both teaching quality and research productivity. The analysis positions wellbeing not as a reactive response to burnout but as a proactive, integral practice essential for sustaining GTAs’ professional and personal development in higher education.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nikita Goel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exploring the complexity of GTAs’ co-teaching experience through zine-making: a collaborative self-study
GTAs bring their own educational values into their teaching (Robertson & Yazan, 2022), making it important to examine factors shaping their instructional decisions. While some studies addressed identity tensions or peer support among GTAs, research on their co-teaching experiences is limited. This collaborative self-study investigates the evolving identities of two graduate teaching assistants (GTAs), one experienced, one novice, using zine-making as a data collection tool in a co-teaching context. Drawing on Zhuo’s (2024) conceptualisation of zine-making as a narrative inquiry method, we created our personal zines to reflect on our co-teaching experiences. The experienced GTA focused on how her teaching strategies shifted with different co-teachers and how these shifts shaped her identity over time. The novice GTA’s zine captured her first two co-teaching experiences, exploring how uncertainty, collaboration and mentorship shaped her emerging sense of self as a teacher. Upon completing our zines, we shared them through oral presentations, extending the narrative beyond the page and enabling dialogic engagement. Qualitative content analysis, one of the analytic approaches demonstrated in Zhuo’s (2024) study, was used to analyse both the visual-textual elements of the zines and the transcripts of our oral zine presentations. This process revealed four key themes in GTAs’ co-teaching, including identity negotiation, relational dynamics, emotional trajectory and key factors for GTAs’ learning. Specifically, it identifies trust, clear communication, mutual respect, and structured reflection as crucial factors in leveraging co-teaching for effective professional development of GTAs. The study concludes that zine-making offers a powerful, reflexive methodology for GTAs to articulate the complexity of their co-teaching experiences and the development of their professional identities. As such, this study adds to the emerging literature on GTA teaching and offers practical insights for programs seeking to optimise co- teaching models for GTAs’ professional development. Additionally, it proposes and demonstrates zine-making as an effective approach to researching GTAs’ experiences and identity.
Copyright (c) 2025 Meifang Zhuo, Suji Ko https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Teaching unfamiliar content can lead to brilliant teaching: Data-led reflections
Unfamiliarity constitutes one of the major challenges faced by novice practitioners while constructing teacher identities. It is often associated with the perceived uncertainties and lack of ownership or autonomy in navigating pedagogical complexities. In practice, any module may entail a sense of unfamiliarity for PGR teachers because they are not involved in the content development processes, usually initiated by the senior module leaders. In writing this article, we seek to reflect on our teaching experiences in three academic departments/centres. As our data-led reflections will show, multiple situated complexities play out in our attempts to mitigate the initially perceived unfamiliarity and externally prescribed non-expert role. The overarching aim is to shed light on strategic negotiation and construction of effective Higher Education professional identities while engaging in interdisciplinary practice. Following a qualitative methodological tradition, the data is generated from iterative reflective journaling and a series of peer dialogues, spanning two academic terms. We approach the data inductively via reflexive thematic analysis, highlighting three major themes in the two narrative reflections: 1) taking a humble stance to acknowledge the signature pedagogy of the unfamiliar field; 2) recognising the core threshold concepts from an etic perspective; and 3) fostering a bottom-up awareness of taking the students’ perspectives as near-peers. The data analysis is based on concrete examples to foreground actionable pedagogical recommendations, which are tried and tested in our own professional development. As such, we will argue that teaching unfamiliar content can lead to brilliant teaching.
Copyright (c) 2025 Junjie Li, Xinran Gao https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
In the Seminar Space: Navigating Graduate Teaching in Undergraduate Legal Education
This reflective paper examines my evolving pedagogical identity as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) within a Global North law department, focusing on the facilitation of undergraduate seminars. Grounded in Warwick Law School’s “Law in Context” philosophy, I reflect on a seminar where students critically engaged with the applicability of CEDAW in Global South contexts. This experience demonstrated how legal instruction can move beyond doctrinal delivery to become a dialogic practice shaped by lived experience, social histories, and interdisciplinary critique. Through scaffolded teaching, peer-led activities, and participatory methods, I aim to decentralise authority and foster cumulative learning across diverse student cohorts. Navigating the dual role of postgraduate student and educator involves constant negotiation between institutional expectations and my commitment to feminist-informed pedagogy. I reflect on the emotional labour required to sustain inclusive engagement, respond to student needs, and maintain care and professionalism—labour that is often invisible, unevenly distributed, and unrecognised within formal teaching structures. Drawing on engaged pedagogy and personal experience, I argue that transformative legal education depends not only on intellectual rigour but also on emotional awareness, epistemic humility, and institutional recognition of the relational work performed by early-career educators. By foregrounding the complexities of care, credibility, and co-construction, this paper affirms the pedagogical agency of postgraduate teachers and calls for more socially responsive approaches to legal education.
Copyright (c) 2025 Hadijah Namyalo-Ganafa https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Pause, Reflect, Dialogue: AI as a Reflective Partner in GTA Teaching Practice
This paper explores how structured, intentional reflection can help Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) navigate fragmented teaching roles and develop stronger professional identities. Drawing on Schön’s (1983) and Killion and Todnem’s (1991) models of reflection, I adapted the Five-Minute Reflection Rule— brief, focused reflections before and after teaching sessions—to build sustainable habits that foster agency, confidence, and pedagogical intentionality. Extending Brookfield’s (1995) four lenses, I incorporated generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and Grok as dialogic partners. Rather than producing content, these tools acted as reflective scaffolds, prompting new questions, surfacing blind spots, and reframing teaching dilemmas. Through examples from my GTA experience, I show how combining structured reflection with AI-mediated dialogue produced tangible classroom changes while exposing the limitations and risks of algorithmic input. I propose a sociotechnical lens as an extension to existing reflective frameworks, emphasizing how human reflection and technological mediation co-construct reflective processes. Ethical concerns—including bias, data privacy, and institutional responsibility for AI literacy—are also addressed. I argue that when approached critically and complementarily, AI can lower barriers to reflection and enrich professional learning without replacing the relational and dialogic dimensions of human reflection. For GTAs and early-career educators, even five minutes of disciplined, critically informed reflection can transform teaching practice and identity formation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Azadeh Moladoost https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
“Dear Former GTA-Self”: Reflections from the Final Chapter of a Graduate Teaching Assistant Journey—from Novice to More Experienced Educator
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are foundational to teaching practices in Higher Education (HE). Despite their widespread prevalence, academic discourse on GTA development remains largely outward facing, focusing on pedagogical practices and institutional outcomes over individual lived experiences. This article addresses that gap by proposing reflective letter writing as a methodological tool to document and facilitate the complex evolution of GTA experiences, drawing from a place of introspection. The basis of the practice presented in the article is theoretically scaffolded by Kolb's Experiential Learning Cycle (1984), Gibbs' Reflective Cycle (1988), and Brookfield’s Four Lenses of Critical Reflection (2017). The letter format offers a unique and creative medium for GTAs to express detailed insights, particularly engaging with the emotional and relational dimensions of their experiences. The practice is modelled through an illustrative example: a self-written, diary-like letter, addressed to the author’s former GTA-self. This reflects on their GTA experiences at the end of a four-year role in UK HE. The letter offers a personal account of the complexities encountered during the transition from a novice to a more experienced educator. The narrative is organised thematically, examining GTA experiences through the lenses of (i) identity construction, (ii) shifting perspectives on what is considered to be important, (iii) the role of intentional actions leading to self-growth, and (iv) the value of self-reflective practices for individual development. A critical discussion is provided, linking this to scholarly discourse. The work offers insight for those navigating their own GTA journeys, inviting readers to reflect on their trajectories and recognise both shared and divergent experiences. This contributes to a more nuanced understanding of GTA development by championing reflective letter writing as tool for fostering self-awareness and agency, as individuals forge their own pathways and foster transformative impact both for themselves and those who surround them in HE and beyond.
Copyright (c) 2025 Alisha Rodgers https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Spaces within spaces: Teaching French culture from a British-Mauritianperspective and its relationship with GTA liminality and identity
Due to its varying nature, GTA positionality and teacher identity and how it is understood is a notoriously difficult subject. Though this can provide GTAs with unique experiences, it also means that we have to navigate these identity tensions on a daily basis, and navigate this liminality and the spaces it inhabits. Liminality, a term developed by anthropologist Victor Turner, can be defined as ‘neither here nor there, betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial’, and is a term that continues to be used in the field of anthropology and wider afield. The majority of literature has identified how this can be a problematic term, with GTAs being both part of and absent from the literature. This paper has no intention of disagreeing with that, but it does seek to offer a more positive outlook and personal reflection on the matter. In this paper, I will argue that we can use our own personal liminalities as an asset in navigating GTA liminality. In order to illustrate this, I will use my own identity as a British-born Mauritian and how it informs my teaching of French culture as an example. The paper will first engage with what we mean by (GTA) liminality, before moving onto how I perceive this in the light of my own liminalities. I will then reflect on how this was received at the Warwick PGT Conference 2025, how this has caused me to further reflect on my experiences, and how these personal reflections connect to broader reflections on GTA teaching practice and identity.
Copyright (c) 2025 Adam Agowun https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Opening Bandura's Box of Experiences: Exploring GTAs' Sense of Plausibility about ESL Teaching
Most available resources on Graduate Teaching Assistants’ (GTAs) classroom pedagogy often emphasise prescriptive accounts of their roles and responsibilities rather than underlying mechanisms which shape their teaching practices. Recent studies in GTA research have begun drawing on teacher education frameworks to better understand GTAs' teaching practices. Extending this line of inquiry, this paper aims to trace GTA’s intuitive yet perceptual understanding of ESL teaching through N.S. Prabhu’s construct of Teacher’s Sense of Plausibility (TSOP). It begins by discussing the recent literature, theoretical frameworks, and models that have been invested in exploring the nature and forces contributing to GTAs' pedagogical identity formation. Furthermore, the paper revisits the construct of the teacher's sense of plausibility, elaborates on its evolution, and presents a four- staged model of the same. The paper then reports a qualitative case study conducted with seven GTAs from the Indian context, which aimed at: a) getting insights into their TSOPs regarding teaching English as a second language, and b) finding out whether they think reflecting on their TSOPs is an effective reflective practice or not. The use of two writing prompts (a life history task and a TSOP discussion sheet for semi-structured interviews) to elicit data, upon content and thematic analysis (via inductive and deductive coding), revealed: a) GTAs TSOPs varied from traditional to creative forms of teaching, demonstrating potential links in their early career and educational experiences; b) While most GTAs valued TSOP as a reflective practice, they emphasised the need for contextually sensitive teacher training and institutional support to sustain its impact. The paper calls for a shift from prescriptive ‘how to teach’ approaches to reflective inquiries into ‘what and how we teach’, offering suggestions for future research.
Copyright (c) 2025 Akshay Kumar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Journal of Pedagogic Practice: GTAs’ (Re/De) Constructing the Learning and Teaching Space Piece By Piece”
This editorial introduces our fourth issue- “GTAs’ (Re/De) Constructing the learning and teaching space piece by piece.” First, we outline how we continue to build upon the successes that previous JPPP issues have already achieved. Following this, we explain what we mean by the theme and how the nine articles in this issue contribute to this theme. Finally, we conclude the editorial by reflecting on the journal's fourth year and offering some thoughts for future JPPP issues
Copyright (c) 2024 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Afterword: "Growing our own: enabling PGR teachers to flourish in authentic ecosystems"
Postgraduate researchers who teach (PGR teachers), or Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play a valuable role in global Higher Education, being a central part of the teaching workforce. PGR teachers are noted, amongst other things, for their ability to relate closely to students, bringing research-informed perspectives and providing effective and nuanced support to students in a massified HE sector. However, in spite of their longstanding presence, they are ubiquitously described as being in a ‘liminal space’ in the literature, and as early career colleagues, often have less professional experience and reduced agency to make pedagogical decisions, all whilst experiencing precarity and other challenges relating to occupying an impermanent role. Professional development opportunities for PGR teachers are reasonably widespread but do they enable the best way for PGR teachers to grow and thrive in their teaching work? This Afterword, drawing on the contributions of authors in Issue 4 of the JPPP, considers how PGR teachers are deploying the outcomes of professional learning, and where the ‘best space’ might be for them to develop and evolve as practitioners. It reflects on the structure and rationale established in the Warwick Postgraduate Teaching Community and argues for the support and initiation of similar PGR communities of practice across the sector, as being optimal spaces for PGR teachers to thrive, learn and grow with peers.
Copyright (c) 2024 Sara Hattersley https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Navigating pedagogical dilemmas in interdisciplinary education: a reflective practice perspective
Interdisciplinary education is increasingly recognized as essential in higher education for addressing complex real-world issues. Although this paradigm shift began in the 20th century, challenges in interdisciplinary pedagogy persist, including classroom preparation, delivery, assessment, and feedback. One significant challenge is disciplinary distance, the disparities between disciplines that hinder effective interdisciplinary teaching and learning. Additionally, the varying degrees of disciplinarity—from intradisciplinary to transdisciplinary—complicate this landscape. Despite interdisciplinary pedagogy's potential to enhance critical thinking and problem-solving, it presents numerous dilemmas. As a graduate teaching assistant, I have faced several such dilemmas. This reflection discusses these interdisciplinary dilemmas and explores epistemological and pedagogical practices to navigate them. Leveraging my experience as a PhD researcher and educator, I examine how teachers with multidisciplinary backgrounds can navigate the complexities of interdisciplinary education.
Copyright (c) 2024 Grace Kamanga https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exploring the ‘Invisible’ in GTAs: Reflections on Intuition and Post-Graduate Mentoring
Postgraduate researchers who teach (Graduate Teaching Assistants) always navigate their academic spaces among several psychological factors in their routines from both inside and outside. They can often be observed attending to students, advising them on their problems and sometimes even relying on their seniors for various topics. In such situations, practitioner intuition remains a well-known and relied-upon source of GTA's decision-making skills but also an underexplored area of investigation, especially in mentoring and language teaching literature (Ushioda, 2023; Burns & Williams, 2023 & Kumar, 2024). Based on this premise, this reflective paper aims to simplify and understand the GTA's pedagogic intuition towards success and failures in PG thesis writing contexts from peer-mentoring perspectives. The initial sections of the paper, imagining GTA's as mentors and their learners as mentees, establish what GTA intuition can be thought of, how it is related to Vygotsky's ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) and the potential operations based on an intuitive decision-making model. The latter part of the paper offers detailed practical insights about these theoretical connections through my own workings of intuition while scaffolding the PG mentees to plan, execute and write their theses. Detailed reflections of both the GTA/mentor and the mentees elicited through think-aloud and discursive puzzling measures are reported extensively. Lastly, the paper advocates for more work towards exploring GTA's intuition in mentoring scenarios (and otherwise), getting more awareness from their cognitions and becoming more intuitive practitioners.
Harnessing the power of peer dialogue to support GTAs’ professional development: Two reflective stories
Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) have played an essential role in supporting teaching and learning in higher education institutions (HEIs) across the globe. Enhancing GTAs’ professional development (PD) is critical for ensuring the quality of higher education. The influence of peers in GTA’s PD has been widely acknowledged (e.g., Bale & Moran, 2020; Dobbins et al., 2021). However, there is limited research on the benefits of peer dialogue, one of the most accessible means of harnessing peer powers in GTAs’ PD. This qualitative study aims to explore how peer dialogue can contribute to GTAs’ PD. This study will use data from two narratives detailing the experiences of peer dialogue, completed independently by two senior GTAs in a UK-based university, who are also the first and second authors of this study. Through thematic analysis, the two researchers will first identify the themes of the data separately and then work together to synthesize the key themes from the data, to uncover the key benefits of peer dialogue in promoting GTAs’ PD. The findings of this study will add to the literature on the power of peers in GTAs’ PD and provide insights into the positive impacts of engaging in peer dialogue activities to promote GTAs’ PD. This study will have significant implications for GTAs interested in seeking PD opportunities and for stakeholders who support GTAs in higher education. By highlighting the benefits of peer dialogue, this study also underscores the need to create a supportive environment or platform for GTAs to be engaged in open and collaborative peer dialogue.
Copyright (c) 2024 Meifang Zhuo, Yanyan Li https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Tackling the Tumbleweed: Reflections on increasing seminar engagement from an introverted GTA
Pedagogical literature identifies established links between student engagement with learning and subsequent academic attainment. During my first year as a GTA, the main challenge I experienced was getting students to verbally engage in seminars, both with myself and their peers. I was surprised by how challenging I found teaching a seminar with limited verbal engagement, and how difficult it was encouraging this during seminar discussions. In this piece, I critically reflect on my experiences as an introverted GTA trying to ‘tackle the tumbleweed’. To commence, I consider the preconceptions I had about what constituted an ‘engaged’ seminar group, and examine varied definitions of (verbal and non-verbal) ‘student engagement’ within the seminar context. Then, I reflect on the techniques I used to encourage both verbal and non-verbal engagement in practice, plus further approaches I will trial in future teaching. In the concluding section, I provide advice for other GTAs and raise wider, external factors likely impacting engagement that lie beyond GTA control.
Copyright (c) 2024 Virginia Thomas-Pickles https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Merging Self-Regulatory Strategies with GTA Pedagogical Practices: Enhancing Student Autonomy and Engagement
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) play a dual role in higher education, balancing their research responsibilities with teaching duties. This dual identity provides a unique vantage point for GTAs to implement innovative teaching practices that encourage students to utilize self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies. This paper explores how GTAs can adopt teaching practices centered on promoting SRL among students. Drawing on data from focus groups and surveys conducted with five GTAs, the study identifies key techniques—such as reflective journals, peer assessments, and technology-enhanced learning tools—that GTAs can incorporate into their teaching. The intervention was conducted over one semester in an English proficiency course tailored for students with low English proficiency. Findings indicate that these strategies not only enhance student engagement and motivation but also improve critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The paper underscores the positive impact of SRL on student learning outcomes and discusses how GTAs can effectively integrate and promote these strategies in their pedagogical practices.
Copyright (c) 2024 Nikita Goel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Navigating the liminal space: Enhancing film teaching through anonymous feedback, digital collages, and advocacy
This reflective piece focuses on the strategies of designing seminars that foster inclusivity and belonging, mainly when teaching in a liminal space as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA). It requires a commitment to understanding diverse student needs, including A-level subjects, learning difficulties, neurodiversity, LGBTQIA+ identities, ethnicity, socio-economic backgrounds, and more. Alongside the module convenor’s guidance and departmental procedures, a GTA’s identity and expertise play a crucial role in shaping the classroom atmosphere. My interdisciplinary PhD research, which focuses on co-creating films with participants facing mental health challenges, informs my view of students as co-creators. As a Staff-Student Liaison Committee (SSLC) representative, I am dedicated to upholding students’ dignity, autonomy, and contributions to the university and society while aiming to provide them with the ethical understanding needed to navigate complex 21st-century challenges. After each seminar, I value anonymous student feedback to tailor my content, listening to their needs and questions, and incorporating audiovisual and interactive material to promote participation, especially among quieter students. With this piece, by sharing my lived experiences as a GTA, I intend to contribute to a collective knowledge base and foster dialogue and collaboration among my peers.
Copyright (c) 2024 Hande Cayir https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Enhancing Student Engagement and Belonging in Legal Education: The Impact of Personalized Teaching and Continuous Professional Development
This paper explores the development of effective teaching strategies within legal education, specifically in the UK, emphasizing personalized teaching, interactive learning techniques, and continuous professional development (CPD) of the teacher. Drawing on reflective teaching practices, this study investigates how personalized approaches—such as the correct pronunciation of students’ names and tailored feedback—foster student engagement and a sense of belonging. Additionally, the implementation of mock courtroom scenarios and technology-enhanced learning tools like VEVOX and Padlet are analysed for their role in promoting higher-order thinking and inclusivity. Continuous professional development informed the decolonization of the curriculum, challenging systemic inequalities in legal education. The findings highlight the importance of integrating personalized attention, interactive methods, and CPD to enhance student engagement, well-being, and the creation of equitable learning environments.
Copyright (c) 2024 Farzan Dar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Cultivating Care in the Classroom: Bridging Cultural Approaches in Malaysian and UK Higher Education
This paper investigates the role of care in the classroom by examining the impact of a care-infused virtual drama approach on English as a Second Language (ESL) learners at two Malaysian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), incorporating teacher reflections and insights from student interviews. Due to the prevalence of power imbalances (Nawi, 2014) and authoritarian practices (Tee et al., 2018) in Malaysia, this paper further explores the perspectives of three Malaysian Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) at the University of Warwick to understand their experiences and understanding of the notion of care within the context of a UK higher education institution. Through one-on-one semi-structured and pair interviews conducted online via Microsoft Teams, these GTAs shared how they manifest care and provide support for their learners at the University of Warwick. The insights from Malaysia and the UK accentuate the significance of fostering care in diverse educational environments, revealing its potential to enhance students’ engagement and well-being across cultural and institutional settings.
Copyright (c) 2024 Shakiratul Hanany https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Editorial: “GTAs’ (Re/De) Constructing the Learning and Teaching Space Piece By Piece”
This editorial introduces our fourth issue- “GTAs’ (Re/De) Constructing the learning and teaching space piece by piece.” First, we outline how we continue to build upon the successes that previous JPPP issues have already achieved. Following this, we explain what we mean by the theme and how the nine articles in this issue contribute to this theme. Finally, we conclude the editorial by reflecting on the journal's fourth year and offering some thoughts for future JPPP issues.
Copyright (c) 2024 Meifang Zhuo, Adam Read, Farzan Dar, Irsa Ajmal, Yanyan Li, Youn Affejee https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Exploring the value of PGRs who teach (PGWT) in supporting undergraduate students’ sense of belonging: A Student Staff Partnership Project
The aim of this research was to explore the impact of interactions between undergraduate students (‘students’) and the postgraduate researchers (‘PGWT’) who teach them, on students’ sense of belonging. Meaningful interactions between staff and students have been identified as a key aspect of students’ sense of belonging. The unique space that postgraduates who teach occupy- both student and teacher- is widely recognized in the literature and through this dual role PGWT can provide a valuable bridge between students and academic staff. Due to the nature of their teaching - which is typically small group teaching characterised by proximity and informality - opportunities can arise for discussion of matters from the wider student experience beyond the curriculum. Activity-oriented focus groups were conducted with module leaders, PGWT and their students in the School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation Sciences at the University of Hull to explore each groups’ perspectives, and the results were thematically analysed. Findings show that whilst students didn’t explicitly recognize or use the term ‘belonging’, through resonance, rapport and academic enrichment PGWT created environments which aligned with definitions of belonging, including building meaningful relationships, contributing to the student experience, and creating informal spaces where students discussed both learning and personal matters. PGWT were relatable, providing authentic examples and being role models. Our findings suggest that being a teacher enables PGWT themselves to feel part of, and that they belong in, the University community. This research adds to the literature on students’ perceptions of PGWT and provides recommendations for future practice.
Copyright (c) 2024 Brenda Grant, Catherine Lillie, Michelle Smith, Amy Tomlinson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Afterword: EDI and the PGR teacher experience: issues, opportunities and aspiring to an inclusive future in Higher Education
PGR teacher ‘liminality’ is well documented, but when seen through the lens of equality, diversity and inclusion, the story becomes more nuanced. This Afterword looks through this lens, considering affordances, opportunities and issues arising for PGR teachers, thinking about their place in a sector which increasingly seeks inclusion. The author makes observations relating to recent institutional evidence and published literature, as well as considering how EDI can be most meaningfully understood in professional learning. She concludes with a celebration of PGR contributions to EDI and a stance that PGRs need to be central to the ambitions of inclusive University futures. It is a privilege to be invited to write the Afterword for the JPPP, the third issue of this journal and, therefore, the third year of the Warwick Postgraduate Teaching Community (WPTC). Building on the eloquent contributions of our PGR authors in this issue, I would like to conclude with some thoughts about the wider context, the issues related to PGRs and equality, diversity and inclusion and how this fits with my own work, in professional learning.
Copyright (c) 2023 Sara Hattersley https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0